Monday, January 21, 2008

In honor of MLK Jr. day, I wanted to share a great and under-appreciated album by the SCLC Operation Breadbasket Orchestra. This was the second of 2 lp's on Chess featuring a large ensemble including studio heavies Ben Branch, Gene Barge, Wayne Bennett and Phil Upchurch - there's even a credit for Donny Hathaway on keys... The sound is mostly mid-tempo simmering gospel jazz arrangements of traditional spirituals - makes me feel uplifted and melancholy at the same time. Favorite track: Nobody Knows.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

On Sunday, Jan. 6th, I made it out to the Jazz Standard to catch the last night "Howlin' for Hubert" show with, you guessed it, Hubert Sumlin, the Wolf's longtime lead guitarist. Ex-Dolls, Ex - Poindexter David Johansen puffed himself up admirably to fill in for the Wolf on vocals and harp. For the second half of the set James 'Blood' Ulmer joined the group and brought the sound to an astonishing sonic cacophony with his signature oblique but powerful inside/outside statements. They whole group chugged along nicely.

This was my first time attending globalFEST, a showcase of diverse 'world music' performers (including the US) organized for the benefit of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters and open-eared general listeners. Although most of the crowd was mostly APAP, there were loyal factions in attendance for particular artists, most interestingly a small tribe of Touregs (not the VW but original namesake) spinning around for Toumast. All in all a fun night running between 3 stages and catching some pretty incredible performances.